Can Google Android phones compete with the Apple iPhone?
A few weeks ago, Google loaned me a Nexus One smartphone for experimentation, and I’ve spent the time since downloading applications and writing my own code.
The good news is that the platform is not only competitive but is often a better choice than the iPhone for many programmers and the companies that employ them.
The Android line is now competitive enough that the casual user may look at the two platforms and assume they’re twins. Both let you call people and fire up a number of apps by mashing your finger into one of an endless matrix of square icons. Both let you pull up Web pages.
To my unsophisticated eye, the iPhone interfaces still look a bit prettier, but for most basic uses, iPhone and Android are as similar as Ford and Mercury or Coke and Pepsi.
The differences become apparent if you want to do more than make a few phone calls and iFart around. The iPhone app marketplace is dramatically larger and deeper, but there’s already a palpable difference in the style.
While iPhone developers have found that one path to success is playing to our baser instincts (until Apple shuts them down), a number of Android applications are offering practical solutions that unlock the power of a phone that’s really a Unix machine you can slip into your pocket.
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GScript, for instance, is an Android app that lets you write your own shell scripts and fire them off with a tap.
Another useful app, Remote DB, lets you turn any SQL query into a button that searches the database remotely, then displays the results. It’s the fastest way to generate a custom app — the only code you need to know is SQL and the UI helps you with that.
That kind of openness is often rejected by the Apple App Store because Apple seems to fear the possibility that someone might add or modify the functionality of a program. Apple’s terms specifically limit interpreters and emulators — enough to force one Ruby implementation to disable the best parts of the eval function.
Some reports suggest that the App Store reviewers are finally coming around to understanding the advantages in the technique taught to many freshman in their first computer science class, but no one really knows.
These kinds of flexible functions aren’t just for code jockeys who use shell scripts all day long. Apps like GScript and Remote DB make it simpler for the IT staff to create rough but workable custom tools for all corners of the enterprise. The users can simply push a button and watch their phone do the right thing.
It’s a Java world
Android’s relative absence of barriers was apparent again and again as I played with the Nexus One. At first I was a bit skeptical that anyone would do much with the open source license. Did it really make sense to reprogram the UI or the functionality if you’re just going to take a few calls and check email? But some folks are relentless tinkerers, and they’re building new Android distros.
These are a long way from the Linux LiveCD ecosystem, but I can see this avenue being useful for an enterprise that wants to put a nice custom interface on top of Android hardware.
